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You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 Coronavirus / CDC Guidelines For Fully Vaccinated People

CDC Guidelines For Fully Vaccinated People

by | 123 Comments

This post is in: 

The CDC has released its guidelines for fully vaccinated people. Note that qualification. Fully vaccinated means

  • 2 weeks after your second dose in a 2-dose series, like the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, or
  • 2 weeks after a single-dose vaccine, like Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen vaccine

If you’re not there yet, continue all prevention steps.

What’s Changed

If you’ve been fully vaccinated:

  • You can gather indoors with fully vaccinated people without wearing a mask.
  • You can gather indoors with unvaccinated people from one other household (for example, visiting with relatives who all live together) without masks, unless any of those people or anyone they live with has an increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19.
  • If you’ve been around someone who has COVID-19, you do not need to stay away from others or get tested unless you have symptoms.
    • However, if you live in a group setting (like a correctional or detention facility or group home) and are around someone who has COVID-19, you should still stay away from others for 14 days and get tested, even if you don’t have symptoms.

There’s more about what hasn’t changed, to remind you. Check it out.

Reader Interactions

123Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    You can gather indoors with fully vaccinated people without wearing a mask

    Hopefully this will encourage more vaccinations.

  3. 3.

    laura

    I dreamed that I got my vax self-administered from a syringe on the end of a barbeque fork. It was the J&J and I cried like a baby with relief that I was fully vaxed. Only a dream.

  4. 4.

    Cheryl Rofer

  5. 5.

    dmsilev

    My parents and I have started talking about having ‘Thanksgiving in April’; by the middle of next month, they’ll be four weeks past their second doses and I’ll be two or three. Enough that we could do an outdoor dinner with my brother and his family, including me safely traveling cross country to get there.
    No firm plans yet, but seeing these guidelines makes the idea seem plausible.

  7. 7.

    Brachiator

    Not just the US, but people are already shouting “It’s time to party. Everything is back to normal.”

    In the UK, people are booking holidays as fast as they can. Spring break party time in the US.

    And we have variant strains a ‘poppin.

    The recent Supreme Court decisions may lead to more people filling churches for Easter service.

    A lot of people are following the rules and doing good.

    But it is a battle between smart moves and utter stupidity.

  9. 9.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Cheryl Rofer: The comparison to sex ed is spot-on. We need to be honest about risk factors and empower people to make their own decisions. This was always true, but especially now as places relax restrictions and vaccination becomes widely available.

  10. 10.

    Eunicecycle

    My daughter-in-law works for VRBO and said they are booking like crazy for spring and summer. It’s good for the company (she survived several rounds of layoffs) but seems a little premature.

  11. 11.

    Mandarama

    My fam has appointments at last! Me, my husband, my younger son, my sister (nym latts) and her husband (nym fancycwabs)…it’s just sinking in. We’ve almost, almost stuck the landing. We will keep to the guidelines. I’m just almost numb thinking about the relief.

    I know how lucky we’ve been through all of this. But I didn’t expect my phase to get shots until the end of the summer, and now it’s happening in March. Thanks, Biden.

  14. 14.

    Mike in NC

    Our friends in Tampa are fully vaccinated, and we’ll be too by the end of the month. Might plan a get-together someplace in May. Still not a great idea to think about booking a cruise in 2021.

  17. 17.

    Yutsano

    Well as soon as Washington opens my level I’m getting stabbed either once or twice. Then I might negotiate a return to my office. It’s still very much up in the air but I’m getting this weird feeling of hope now. Oh and I’m not going anywhere near Texas any time soon.

  19. 19.

    chopper

    @Baud:

    man yesterday (in anticipation of this being the guidelines), i went to visit my BIL 10 minutes away, and he and his wife, as well as myself and my wife, are all fully vaxxed.

    let me tell you, it’s both strange and completely exhilarating to be able to take off the masks, hug someone, and hang out having dinner and a glass of wine inside.

  21. 21.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Saw this Atlantic article:

    The Differences Between the Vaccines Matter: Yes, all of the COVID-19 vaccines are very good. No, they’re not all the same.

    Public-health officials are enthusiastic about the new, single-shot COVID-19 vaccine from Johnson & Johnson, despite its having a somewhat lower efficacy at preventing symptomatic illness than other available options. Although clinical-trial data peg that rate at 72 percent in the United States, compared with 94 and 95 percent for the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, many experts say we shouldn’t fixate on those numbers. Much more germane, they say, is the fact that the Johnson & Johnson shot, like the other two, is essentially perfect when it comes to preventing the gravest outcomes. “I’m super-pumped about this,” Virginia’s vaccine coordinator told The New York Times last weekend. “A hundred percent efficacy against deaths and hospitalizations? That’s all I need to hear.”

    […]

    There’s a problem here. It’s certainly true that all three of the FDA-authorized vaccines are very good—amazing, even—at protecting people’s health. No one should refrain from seeking vaccination on the theory that any might be second-rate. But it’s also true that the COVID-19 vaccines aren’t all the same: Some are more effective than others at preventing illness, for example; some cause fewer adverse reactions; some are more convenient; some were made using more familiar methods and technologies. As for the claim that the vaccines have proved perfectly and equally effective at preventing hospitalization and death? It’s just not right.

    These differences among the options could matter quite a bit, in different ways to different people, and they should not be minimized or covered over. Especially not now: Vaccine supplies in the U.S. will soon surpass demand, even as more contagious viral variants spread throughout the country. In the meantime, governors are revoking their rules on face masks, or taking other steps to loosen their restrictions.

    It’s tempting to believe that a simple, decisive message—even one that verges on hype—is what’s most needed at this crucial moment. But if the message could be wrong, that has consequences.

  22. 22.

    SpongeBobtheBuilder

    What if you prefer not to visit your maga relatives? Do you pretend not to be fully vaccinated?

  24. 24.

    JoyceH

    Hey, hang onto those masks! Put all that stuff in a box clearly labeled PPE and remember which closet you put it in. Next time we don’t want to be stuck indoors until the friend with the skills and sewing machine runs up some homemade masks.

    What, you don’t think there’s going to be a next time?

  25. 25.

    Cameron

    Wow! By the middle of April I’ll be able to hang with my fully-vaccinated friends here! All two or three of them….

  26. 26.

    Doc Sardonic

    @Yutsano:  As an Florida resident I am encouraging people more vigorously than normal not to come here. Ron DeShithead is as stupid as Abbott but more mendacious and sneaky, so I expect a Maze Runner style plague here in about 6 weeks.

  28. 28.

    Brachiator

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    It’s tempting to believe that a simple, decisive message—even one that verges on hype—is what’s most needed at this crucial moment. But if the message could be wrong, that has consequences.

    Oh, bullshit. I get so tired of these types of news stories.

    I’m so ancient I remember when there was a Sabin vaccine and a Salk vaccine. They both stopped polio. Which was the damn point.

    If there is an excess of vaccine in the US, it means the rest of the world can be vaccinated more quickly. Which is the damn point.

    We are so goddam lucky that (so far) there are not major side effects or contra-indications for the vaccine.

  31. 31.

    dmsilev

    Mark your calendars:

    President Biden will deliver a prime-time address on Thursday to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the covid “shutdown” and to talk about the role “Americans will play in beating the virus,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced Monday.

    I hear he’s going to tout hydroxychloroquine and the benefits of sticking a UV light up your ass.

  32. 32.

    H.E.Wolf

    @different-church-lady:  When the time is right, I’m throwing a mask-burning party!

     
    I understand the impulse. :)

    Our household is planning to keep our masks, and wear them when we’re in public venues during flu season… and quite likely when traveling at any time of year. Those are the situations in which we’ve picked up viruses in the past.

    No one in our household has had a cold for the past year. That’s unprecedented, and very welcome.

  34. 34.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @dmsilev:

    Don’t forget injecting bleach into your veins!

    I still can’t get over the fact that people defended that shit. If it had come out of the mouth of anyone else, Trump supporters probably would’ve laughed that person out of the room

  36. 36.

    Skepticat

    @Brachiator: But it is a battle between smart moves and utter stupidity.

    Sadly, we know how that usually goes, especially lately.​
    ​
    ​

  38. 38.

    JMG

    @H.E.Wolf: That sounds like how we’ll go in our household. Also, my guess is that masks will be mandatory on domestic flights for some time yet, and on international flights maybe forever.

  39. 39.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @JMG:

    I’ve never understood that. I thought planes had air filtration systems for things like bacteria and viruses? I guess I’ll have to look that up when I get a chance

  40. 40.

    smedley the uncertain

    @Mike in NC: Cruises have always been notorious for the Plague Buffet choices on offer.

     

    Perhaps this whole mess my encourage an more effective approach to nautical hygiene.

  41. 41.

    Ken

    @JoyceH: What, you don’t think there’s going to be a next time?

    Next you’ll be saying that we should monitor volcanoes.

  44. 44.

    Ken

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I thought planes had air filtration systems for things like bacteria and viruses? I guess I’ll have to look that up when I get a chance

    I think that was brought up in the comments here sometime within the past year, and the recommendation was that you not look it up. At least, not if you were planning to breathe on an airplane again.

    Though (again IIRC) the worst stories were from when smoking was allowed, and the maintenance crew had to scrape the tar deposits from the ventilation ducts every few months to reduce the weight.

  45. 45.

    Kirk Spencer

    @JMG: mandatory or not, I plan on making it standard for my air travel in the future. Board, seat, don mask.

    Maybe don before entering the airport, but in the enclosed tube with high air recirc it’s a certainty.

  48. 48.

    Barbara

    @Eunicecycle: ​
     We are making plans for summer but only because we are guaranteed a full refund closer to the travel date. In other words we can cancel if things are still too unsettled or we are unable to get vaccinated.

  49. 49.

    smedley the uncertain

    @Doc Sardonic:  Doc, we still have our St Augustine time share booked for the end of May.  By then we will be fully vaxxed. The spousal unit has COPD and needs supplemental O2.  Would appreciate your thoughts.

  51. 51.

    Brachiator

    @Ruckus:

    But it is a battle between smart moves and utter stupidity.

    Isn’t it always?

    Well, there was that one Star Trek episode where a “dumb move” was the logical choice.

  52. 52.

    Jay

    @Brachiator:

    Covid starts in the sinus’s.

    It’s unknown if the current vaccines prevent the 1st stage of infection and spread.

    They do prevent to various different levels, ( all over 90%), major infection, hospitalization and death.

    So, to sum up, being vaccinated does not mean you can’t get infected or continue to spread the disease,

    the Sinal Vaccine Spray looks promising.

    I’m not going to do anything different until Covid ain’t a thing, and even then, will probably mask up in public.

  53. 53.

    Soprano2

    @Major Major Major Major: Amanda Marcotte says on Twitter that too many people learned nothing from successful AIDS avoidance education. There are tradeoffs that people need to be made aware of, but I’m not on board with shaming people who aren’t 100% compliant with all the guidelines all the time, or with dictating that there’s only one “real” way to do all of this. I’m glad to see the CDC finally do this, it gives people something positive about being vaccinated rather than just a bunch of scolding that how dare you think anything can be different after you’re vaccinated?

  54. 54.

    Benw

    Once the grandparents are fully vaccinated, everyone’s going to want to visit. Sounds like the CDC is being smart and trying to get out ahead of this by suggesting that it be one household at a time.

    In April my in-laws and I will be fully vaccinated and we’re going up to visit for the first time in over a year. My wife and kids won’t be, but we’ll self-quarantine, and we’ll still be within the guidelines. There will be hugs, and meals, and tears of happiness!

  55. 55.

    Obvious Russian Troll

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Air filtration only helps you with the air that gets filtered. In any closed environment, you’re going to be breathing the same air that the people closest to you are breathing long before it gets into the filtration system.

    That middle-aged couple two rows over in MAGA hats without masks? Yeah, you’re going to be breathing the air they exhale.

    And that’s completely ignoring the fact that the filtration system on most air planes is not all that good to begin with.

  56. 56.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Here’s my take on articles like that.

    What we must do now is slow the spread of the virus. All of the vaccines do that, some perhaps slightly better than others. Getting any of the vaccines is a good thing right now. Waiting for the best makes it more likely you’ll get sick.

    There is still a lot we don’t know about the vaccines, some of it noted on the CDC page I linked above. Over 200 more vaccines are being developed.

    It is entirely possible that the vaccines we have now will not be the best. It is entirely possible that we may need a better vaccine in a year or so. But we have to get the spread down before we can figure those things out and, more importantly, to prevent more deaths.

    So I get annoyed with those who feel they know better than the authorities and who, unfortunately, have significant platforms. I can think of two others besides that author.

  58. 58.

    Brachiator

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I’ve never understood that. I thought planes had air filtration systems for things like bacteria and viruses? I guess I’ll have to look that up when I get a chance

    A person could sit next to you or across from you and cough, sneeze and breathe on you for 6 hours.

  59. 59.

    germy

    Scientists talk about the different Covid-19 vaccines the way that parents have to talk about their kids. “They’re all great. No, seriously. There isn’t one I love more than the others.”

    — JEN KIRKMAN ??‍? (@JenKirkman) March 7, 2021

    Pfizer is the oldest and overachieves. Moderna a is the middle child, emulating Pfizer but not as good. JJ gets Bs instead of As like Pfizer, but as the baby is better adjusted and gets along with people easier.

    — ghost in boots (@ghostinboots) March 7, 2021

  60. 60.

    Ruckus

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Even if planes do have that, and I don’t think they do, that air still has to get from the plane to you, and then back before being filtered, and there are 150-300 other people in that plane besides you in between any filtration and fresh air. IOW it wouldn’t make any difference if planes had that.

  62. 62.

    Brachiator

    @Soprano2:

    Oh, and we also have a lying state government when it comes to COVID cases and deaths. Paint me completely unsurprised by this

    I was going to reply in some detail to this, but it make me too angry.

  63. 63.

    germy

    You can gather indoors with fully vaccinated people without wearing a mask.

    I hope the idiots who tried forging “I am exempt from wearing a mask for medical reasons” certificates don’t get the idea to forge “I am fully vaccinated” certificates.

  64. 64.

    Ruckus

    @Ken:

    Don’t know if they scrapped the crap out of the vents, but flying on planes with smokers was, to put it bluntly, fucking insane, and bordered up creating murderous bastards out of normal humans.

  65. 65.

    Ken

    @Jay: IIUC, that’s true of all vaccines. They don’t prevent a virus or germ from entering your system and starting to reproduce, and you can still infect others.  What the vaccine does is make sure your immune system quickly recognizes the infection and knows how to KILL KILL KILL, so your symptoms are minimal.  As Cheryl quoted above, studies are being conducted to see how well the COVID vaccines reduce the potential for infecting others.

  66. 66.

    StringOnAStick

    How mask wearing absolutely crushed the number of flu cases this year is very instructive; I’m glad we bought comfortable, well fitting masks with replacement filters because I figure they’re going to be useful from now on, like on airplanes (where I know I have caught colds in the past).

    Remember too that the most vaccination resistant are the R’s, and they’ll be on the planes and out in public being the most irresponsible because it suits their narrative.  These wilful plague rats will be with us until we get the infection numbers way down, which we may never fully get to because of these idiots.  Keep your masks, you’re going to continue to need them for the long haul.

  67. 67.

    Ruckus

    @Brachiator:

    Aw yes. And there is always the move where utter simplicity/stupidity actually works out to be the answer, but only because the folks in question were planning 1200 ways to fix something when shutting the door was the correct answer and the 3 yr old got there first.

  68. 68.

    Brachiator

    @germy: ​
     

    Pfizer is the oldest and overachieves. Moderna a is the middle child, emulating Pfizer but not as good. JJ gets Bs instead of As like Pfizer, but as the baby is better adjusted and gets along with people easier.

    An interesting, but flawed metaphor.

    You can get more people vaccinated over a set period of time with the JJ vaccine. And a smaller window until a person can be “fully immunized.”

    How many people do you need to have vaccinated with any of the three vaccines in order to get a good result in that population?

    We never had it so good as to have good options for effective vaccination.

  69. 69.

    Ken

    @germy: don’t get the idea to forge “I am fully vaccinated” certificates.

    They can try, but they’ll be caught when the scanner doesn’t pick up their Soros microchip.

  70. 70.

    JoyceH

    @Soprano2: ​
     

    I’m not on board with shaming people who aren’t 100% compliant with all the guidelines all the time, or with dictating that there’s only one “real” way to do all of this.

    Since the new administration, when I watch the news it’s nice to see more people wearing masks, even Republicans in Congress. But I’ve noticed I’m starting to get irked at the WAY they’re wearing masks, seems like most of them are too loose with big old air gaps.

  72. 72.

    StringOnAStick

    @Ken: That cartoon does a better job explaining how vaccination works than just about anything else out there. I’ve sent it to a bunch of non-medical friends and they all loved it and felt better informed!

  73. 73.

    Jay

    @Ken:

    the Nasal Spray Vaccine shows promise that it might prevent Covid from infecting your sinuses.

    We can’t enforce mask mandates or social distancing, so how is a $2.45 + tips minimum wage employee going to “enforce” Vaccine Passports?

    I am not going to do anything different until Covid becomes a clickbait story about some rare outbreak in Magastan,

    and probably by then, there will be some new pandemic, out of some Tyson Pig Farm in Iowa, or The Villages in Floriduh.

  74. 74.

    Jay

    @Ken:

    No Shirt, No Shoes, No Mask, No Service.

    No Pants, we need to see the prehensile tail as proof of vaccination.

  75. 75.

    evap

    I’ll be fully vaccinated on April 9!!    Unfortunately, it will be a while before my spousal unit is vaccinated.  In the meantime, I can visit other friends who are fully vaccinated.

  76. 76.

    citizen dave

    @Brachiator: This phrase “And we have variant strains a ‘poppin.” means one thing to me, Indiana’s most hilarious event (and no I have never been to the event or ever at the site): Nudesapoppin.  Looks like it is slated for July but nothing concrete.  Also, I’ve never seen NSFW stuff in a wikipedia article, but it is in this one (seriously–warning!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudes-A-Poppin%27

    When I was a kid my grandfather who I didn’t see a lot, and his wife, lived out in the country near the Ponderosa Sun Club (NW Indiana).  That was the first I was aware of it.  Kudos to them for keeping a business going for 50 years.

    To repurpose the Indiana Beach (a nearby amusement park) marketing phrase “There’s more than corn in Indiana!”

  77. 77.

    citizen dave

    I must have used a banned word–my post did not show.

    I am fully vaccinated as of Saturday–moderna.  Very fatigued on Sunday–had to lay down for 3-4 hours.

    My elder dad informed me my RWNJ brother, who had covid, will not take the vaccine, and my brother’s wife won’t take it either.  How do me and my wife feel about visiting with the brother/wife?  Perfect excuse not to.  (My dad and his wife are fully vaccinated).

    A beautiful day here, and driving was thinking how terrible I would feel if He Who Shall Not Be Named was still in the WH.  No matter what happens, every day is better now.  Not to mention that Biden and his crew are hitting home runs every single day.

  78. 78.

    germy

    @Brachiator:  We never had it so good as to have good options for effective vaccination.

    You’re right. I never dreamed we’d have not one, but three effective vaccines a year later. I really thought it would take several years to develop anything.

  79. 79.

    mrmoshpotato

    @citizen dave:

    I must have used a banned word–my post did not show.

    Well, we know it wasn’t “penis.”  You can say “penis” now. :)

  81. 81.

    Roger Moore

    @H.E.Wolf:

    No one in our household has had a cold for the past year. That’s unprecedented, and very welcome

    It’s great that we’ve had way fewer respiratory viruses, but the masks are only a part of that.  You also have to credit all the other stuff we’ve been doing to shut down COVID, like staying home.  We can probably make every flu season less terrible by masking up again, but just wearing masks won’t eliminate the flu and common cold.

  82. 82.

    Roger Moore

    @Jay: ​
     

    It’s unknown if the current vaccines prevent the 1st stage of infection and spread.

    It’s not known for certain exactly how effective it is, but there’s excellent evidence that vaccination substantially reduces not just symptoms but actual infection levels.

  85. 85.

    bluefoot

    I haven’t seen any data about how the vaccines may improves chances of avoiding “long COVID” symptoms.  I know of at least a couple of people who had mild COVID who are still experiencing loss of taste/smell, other neurological symptoms, and/or cardiac issues.

    Has anybody here seen anything about long COVID and vaccination?

  86. 86.

    Bill Arnold

    @Ken:

    They can try, but they’ll be caught when the scanner doesn’t pick up their Soros microchip.

    [Fiddles with phone]
    [straight innocent face] “Are you sure? I’m not sensing your vaccine microchip. Where did you get vaccinated?”

  87. 87.

    Hungry Joe

    I’m almost in the club: Got #2 Moderna yesterday morning. Currently I have joint pain, headache, and lethargy, all mild/moderate (Tylenol helps), but last night’s chills knew what they were doing. I almost hied to the hot tub, but it was 3:30 a.m. and about 48 degrees outside, and I didn’t have the moxie.

  89. 89.

    Jay

    @Roger Moore:

    severity of infections.

    Covid colonizes the nose, and for 7-28 days, you are blowing out the virus with every breath.

    At some point in time, ( it varies), the virus gets past the beachhead into the blood and lungs, and causes symptoms,

    Or it doesn’t.

    While the current vaccines all significantly prevent major symptoms, hospitalization and death,

    they don’t, ( or it’s not clearly known at this point), if they prevent infection and spread.

    Yes, two vaccinated people can hug, as there is a good chance that if one is infected, the other won’t be infected, or won’t have anything more than mild symptoms if infected.

    Thus the CDC guidelines.

    But if a mild infected, vaccinated person hugs an unvaccinated, uninfected person, all bets are off.

    The Covidiots have not gone away. There will be lot’s of morons out there saying “I’m vaccinated, I can do anything I want, I’m immune!”, when they are not immune. They just have a 92% to 95% chance of NOT GETTING SEVERE SYMPTOMS, NOT HAVING TO BE HOSPITALIZED, NOT DYING.

    And right now, there are enough Covidiots out there that new mutations are COMBINING.

  90. 90.

    Jay

    @bluefoot:

    there is some evidence that getting vaccinated reduces some Long Covid issues, other studies say nurp, nursh.

    So far the studies do say, vaccination is safe if you have had, ( had, not currently have), Covid.

  91. 91.

    glc

    @ Goku

    Bastian is excellent and, from what I have seen, careful. Branswell as well.

    Though saying anything at all in the public sphere is a tightrope walk.

    Some people get upset as soon as you mention confidence intervals. Other people get upset if you don’t.

  93. 93.

    Mary G

    Anybody that claims to know exactly what is the best thing to do is a liar or an idiot. This is an all-new disease that’s been in humans maybe 16 months. Even with all the welcome research being done at superhuman speeds by scientists all over the world, it’s going to be years before all the questions are answered. Since I’m taking immunosuppressive drugs, the vaccine won’t work as well on me, so I will stick with the masks when out and about. But it is a huge relief to be able to go back to being a homebody who almost never goes anywhere because I want to, not because I have to.

  94. 94.

    Bill Arnold

    The CDC scientific brief associated with the guidelines is quite interesting. It acknowledges social pressures and health threats from isolation as factors. And quite obviously the CDC was under enormous pressure to issue guidelines even without data on whether the vaccines are sterilizing.
    Science Brief: Background Rationale and Evidence for Public Health Recommendations for Fully Vaccinated People (updated Mar. 8, 2021)
    This is what it says about vaccines reducing outgoing transmission; not much. I am presuming that studies involving contact tracing are being done at least somewhere.

    However, further investigations are ongoing to assess the impact of COVID-19 vaccination on transmission.
    …
    [animal challenge study]In addition, COVID-19 vaccination prevented or limited viral replication in the upper and lower respiratory tracts, which may have implications for transmission of the virus among humans 4-6.
    …
    Preliminary data from Israel suggest that persons vaccinated with Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine who develop COVID-19 have a four-fold lower viral load than unvaccinated persons 18. This observation may indicate reduced transmissibility, as viral load has been identified as a key driver of transmission 19.

  95. 95.

    cain

    @Yutsano: ​

    Well as soon as Washington opens my level I’m getting stabbed either once or twice. Then I might negotiate a return to my office. It’s still very much up in the air but I’m getting this weird feeling of hope now. Oh and I’m not going anywhere near Texas any time soon.

     

    Sir, I look forward to your delightful stabbing both un and deux. May you be contently stabbed!

  96. 96.

    Roger Moore

    @Jay:

    IIRC, they’ve started to do studies to look at actual infection rates rather than just symptoms, and the rate of infections in vaccinated people is lower.  It’s not as much lower as the rate of symptomatic infections, but the best evidence is that the vaccines actually prevent infections, not just help with severity.

  97. 97.

    cain

    @Benw: ​
     

    Once the grandparents are fully vaccinated, everyone’s going to want to visit. Sounds like the CDC is being smart and trying to get out ahead of this by suggesting that it be one household at a time.

    Also a subtle way of encouraging more vaccinations – since it means freedom. I suspect the demand will start spiking. Thanks to bill we will be signing – it’s going to ramp pretty hard.

    We need to get ahead of the virus creating new strains that could make the vaccines job harder.

  98. 98.

    Bill Arnold

    @glc:

    Some people get upset as soon as you mention confidence intervals.

    Confidence intervals are a part of describing physical reality.
    People want easily understood and easily remembered decision criteria, and that’s fine, but they must recognize that the criteria are constructed using deeper information and may change as new information is considered. E.g. we are still spending a lot of collective effort on surface hygiene even though it’s been clear since Spring 2020 that SARS-CoV-2 spreads almost entirely through sharing of unfiltered exhaled air. (Probably blocked a lot of rotavirus and other viruses spread via fomites, though)

  99. 99.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Jay: This is not true.

    And right now, there are enough Covidiots out there that new mutations are COMBINING.

    Some similar mutations are cropping up in separate places. That is called convergent evolution, and it’s not surprising. In some cases, more than one mutation is of concern. But they are not combining.

    I make a point of that because flu viruses do reassort themselves as they pass from bird to pig to human and so on. That could be called combining. Flu viruses contain two parts, the H (hemagglutinin) and N (neuramidinase). There are several types of H and N, hence designations like H1N1 or H2N5. And H and N can acquire mutations.

    Coronaviruses have only one part, and they do not (so far) pass among different species in the way flu viruses do. Further, SARS-CoV-2 has an error correcting mechanism that keeps the mutation rate down.

    However, wide, unrestrained spread is the best way to develop new variants of SARS-CoV-2. Hence the push to vaccinate everyone as soon as possible.

  100. 100.

    catclub

    @Cheryl Rofer: yes. In order for your immune response to work, it has to respond to the invading infection.  So there will not be zero virus particles in you if you are exposed, and some of those virus particles could be transmitted to someone else.

  101. 101.

    Brachiator

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Thanks for the explanation.

    However, wide, unrestrained spread is the best way to develop new variants of SARS-CoV-2.

    A Brazilian researcher noted that early disregard for protecting against the virus may have led to the rise of variants there.

    The researcher also claimed that more people had died of the pandemic in Brazil than from any other disaster in that country’s history.

  103. 103.

    Fair Economist

    @Cheryl Rofer: SARS2 *can* recombine, via its error correction enzyme. It can “correct” a block of one virus’ sequence with another, producing a chimera. It’s much rarer than flu reassortment, but it happens.

  104. 104.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Fair Economist: I’m not clear on what you’re saying and would like a link to a longer explanation.

    Are you saying that the SARS-CoV-2 RNA can be spliced from one SARS-CoV-2 virus to another? Or that it recombines with other viruses?

    In any case, that would seem to be a very rare occurrence in a virus that is more stable than most RNA viruses, and not at all the same thing that happens with flu virus H and N recombinations.

    I think we have to be careful about being academically pure and noting all the things that can happen at minuscule levels instead of looking at the bigger picture.

    In any case, getting as many people as possible vaccinated as soon as possible will avoid most of this.

  105. 105.

    PST

    @citizen dave: I share your question about whether it is okay for fully vaccinated people like my wife and me to visit those who have had COVID-19 but not been subsequently vaccinated. I’m thinking about younger relatives and friends who are way back in the vaccination queue, not people like your RWNJ brother. I plan to do it, even without CDC sanction. We’ve behaved well for a long time now and the chances of harm seem small.

  106. 106.

    Brachiator

    @Bill Arnold:

    People want easily understood and easily remembered decision criteria, and that’s fine, but they must recognize that the criteria are constructed using deeper information and may change as new information is considered.

    Sadly, people don’t have to recognize any such thing. And they don’t.

    And of course sometimes people are looking for an excuse to discard science or facts.

    I keep hearing some local media people say that the health authorities either did not know anything or were lying when they changed their recommendations about wearing masks. Others said that the change undermined their belief in anything that these people said.

    Part of the problem may be that the average person needs things explained in non-technical language and without resorting to using terms that seem specialized.

    The other problem is that some people belief that science is, or must be, inerrant Truth, like religion. If some scientific claim changes in the light of new data, these folk will take this as “proof” that science is false or arbitrary and that maybe everybody should now believe in God.

  109. 109.

    Jay

    @Roger Moore:

    may prevent is not Medical advise I am willing to take at this time.

    I am not knocking the science or the vaccines, just the idiots.

    As far as I am concerned, I will treat people outside my bubble who claim to be vaccinated as no different than Covidiots or the possibly infected.

    There is a case in Surrey, where a guy hosted a big house party, got busted, but is arguing that “It’s okay, because as a Health Worker, I’ve been vaccinated”.

  110. 110.

    Jay

    @Bill Arnold:

    China has recorded many cases of formite transmission.

    It’s mostly been via food workers dealing with shipments of frozen foods, but,

    Think of the tire shop, playing Fox, 24/7, with a coffee pot that hasn’t been cleaned in a decade and the single “bathroom”,….

    We still wipe everything down, every half hour, sterilize all the equipment  and don’t rent the air purification equipment.

    Dinged a Customer the other day who rented an industrial vacume,……….. who used it to clean out asbestos, ….. and returned it full.

    Yeah, they got a stop work order slapped on them and kicked out of the home.

  111. 111.

    glc

    @Bill Arnold: Yes – more germane to the sentence following the one you quoted, I think.

    Meanwhile the task of the journalist is to phrase things so that people of both sorts will understand what is being said in a way that reflects the known facts. To the extent possible.

    A tightrope.

  112. 112.

    Darkrose

    Just got my first Moderna shot less that 24 hours after making the appointment. Kaiser sent out a notice yesterday that educators were eligible for this phase, so I got one of the many slots available and drove out to Cal Expo today. The whole process took 20 minutes including the 15 minute wait after getting the jab.

    For all of the horribleness of the past year, it really is astonishing that we have a safe, effective vaccine available a year after this disease emerged. Humans are capable of amazing things when we put our energy into it.

  113. 113.

    cain

    @Brachiator: ​
     

    If some scientific claim changes in the light of new data, these folk will take this as “proof” that science is false or arbitrary and that maybe everybody should now believe in God.

    Like the interpretation of holy books isn’t itself capricious.

  114. 114.

    Brachiator

    @cain:

    If some scientific claim changes in the light of new data, these folk will take this as “proof” that science is false or arbitrary and that maybe everybody should now believe in God.

    Like the interpretation of holy books isn’t itself capricious.

    I know. It’s crazy.

  116. 116.

    Gvg

    Gov. Desantos was quoted today as saying we would be vaccinating down to 60 soon and 50 by the end of the month.

    Seperately a work townhall zoom meeting with the University’s health spokesperson, said that by fall he thought there would be 6 approved vaccines, so things are looking. He predicted Astra Zeneca would be next, within the next few weeks.

  117. 117.

    Platonicspoof

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    As you note, we should define words like “combine” first, but that’s far from my field. Maybe these links are relevant (and next comment). Google translate works well. First link describes one pathway to re-combination, second quote cites it happening in one patient (h/t Anne Laurie). Note that it says the two variants must interact in the same cell, not just be in the same person:

    This is due, according to Shivkumar, to the that coronaviruses can also undergo major changes in their genetic sequence through a process called recombination. When two viruses infect the same cell, they can exchange much of their genomes with each other and create completely new sequences.

     

    Evidence of recombination has been found in both the laboratory and a patient infected with SARS-CoV-2, suggesting that this could drive the generation of new variants. In fact, it is proposed that SARS-CoV-2’s ability to infect human cells was developed by recombining the peak protein between closely related animal coronaviruses.

  118. 118.

    Platonicspoof

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Hopefully the speed of vaccination will reduce the chances of variants.

    Reports of “recombining” do appear to be very rare (and make tasty clickbait), but since we are far behind in genetic testing in the U.S., we have millions of willing U.S. hosts, billions of unwilling hosts worldwide and I have no idea how discerning the virus testing is, I don’t think we know its significance yet.

    None of the links I have are peer reviewed research, but are at least worth keeping for future search terms. These New Scientist links are just reports so far. Korber only calls the evidence “pretty clear”, but the other sources they quote seem to say the mechanism is real.

    First, regarding the precision of genetic tests:

    Two analyses published in December and January independently reported that it hadn’t yet been detected, though that may be because up until then all circulating viruses were so genetically similar that it was impossible to tease out ongoing recombination events from the background noise of normal mutation.

     

    How exactly does recombination happen?

    It occurs because the coronavirus enzyme that replicates its genome is prone to slipping off the RNA strand it is copying and then rejoining where it left off. If a host cell contains two different coronavirus genomes, the enzyme can repeatedly jump from one to the other, stitching together a mosaic genome. This is more likely to occur where the two viruses are closely related, but has been documented between quite distantly related coronaviruses.

     

    .

  119. 119.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Jay:  the Nasal Spray Vaccine shows promise that it might prevent Covid from infecting your sinuses.

    Link? Because I don’t believe it.

    A spray vaccine won’t “prevent COVID from infecting your sinuses.” Vaccines don’t kill viruses. Vaccines work by provoking the immune system into manufacturing antibodies against the disease in question. Those antibodies circulate in the bloodstream and attack any viruses found there.

    If the virus is hanging out in a part of the body with poor or nonexistent blood flow – e.g., the cilia and/or epithelium of the nasal cavity, from which it can very easily be exhaled to go find another host – then all the antibodies in the bloodstream won’t kill it. It’ll just sit there biding its time (‘cuz remember, it’s not really alive) until it’s breathed out.

    If you want to kill the viruses hanging out in the nasal cavity – which would almost certainly be the ones spread by an asymptomatic or vaccinated carrier – then you need to apply something to that area that will kill them directly. Some compounds relatively benign inside the body have been found to kill COVID in vitro (0.07% cetylpyridinium chloride is one I’ve heard of, a common active ingredient in antibacterial mouthwashes). We need to ID such compounds and develop ways to deliver them to the nasal cavity – neti pots, vaporizers, nasal sprays, swabs, RotoRooters, whatever.

  121. 121.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Roger Moore: [T]here’s excellent evidence that vaccination substantially reduces not just symptoms but actual infection levels.​

    Link? Because I don’t think that implies what you think it does.

    It’s immaterial whether a vaccinated individual shows a significant virus level in the bloodstream where the antibodies provoked by vaccination circulate. What is far more important is whether there is virus hanging around in areas where blood flow is poor or nonexistent, and can be spread into the external environment from there, e.g., the cilia and epithelial cells of the nasal cavity.

  122. 122.

    J R in WV

    @different-church-lady: ​
     

    When the time is right, I’m throwing a mask-burning party!

    The time will not EVER be right for burning masks, as long as the Corona-Virus is still mutating and spreading. We should wear masks for the rest of our lives, because this virus will be mutating and spreading for that long.

    Get used to it!!

  123. 123.

    J R in WV

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): ​

     

    I thought planes had air filtration systems for things like bacteria and viruses?

    They do, HEPA grade filters. But think about how close everyone is on an aircraft, even in the front cabins… what if the guy behind you sneezes AND has a bad case of the flu starting up.

    Worst illness Wife and I ever had we caught flying home from an extended vacation, one where we were pretty much all alone touring Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah the month before Memorial Day. No crowds anywhere, but for the aircraft we took out of Salt Lake to come back east.

    Two days later we were at our family doc’s office, where he prescribed Tamiflu, which probably helped quite a bit, but we were bedfast eating canned soup for nearly a week.

    Wear a mask when you’re out in any crowded space, especially airports / aircraft, bike week, spring break, Superbowl, etc, etc.

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